“That’s not my job”

People often shame wearing all the hats and say “that’s not my job”. But it’s often knowing when to do and study the things that are technically not your job that help you do your job better and get paid much more for it.

This is especially important if you have little to no experience. I've heard too many new graduates complain about how they have a degree yet nobody will give them a job yet they turned down opportunities that could've been a good start because they felt their degree somehow made them superior.  

You need to roll up your sleeves and do what you gotta do for you to get your foot in the door or someone more humble and hungrier to prove themselves than you will do it.

To be clear, yes, there is a gray area where you have to decide if there's a learning opportunity (or not) because many people do try and take advantage. Just make sure you're really being honest with yourself and it's not your own ego getting in the way.

The key is pinpointing the complementary skills that'll help you do better. Figure out what you could learn to do better and solves a "shut up and take my money" kind of pain point for a client/employer.

Specialist or generalist, learning different things can help you progress.

You might specialize in writing blogs for SaaS companies. But would you hit your peak potential if you only ever learned about improving the flow of your writing?

You'd have a better shot at landing better work if you learned about things like SEO, marketing, how to build a valuable network, and working for a SaaS company.

My personal observation is specialists do well as freelancers hired for a highly specific in-demand task. They also work well as part of a large corporation where their job is highly focused on one main thing.

If you’re like me and work in a startup (or run your own business), you need to be more of a generalist. Being able to wear multiple hats before you hire help is a must in the early stages of growth and can't build the dream team just yet.

If you have zero experience and don't know exactly what you want to focus on content-wise, say yes to as many opportunities as possible. At this point in your career, it's less about making a lot of money now and more about landing the educational and insightful experiences you need to build your happiness, self-awareness, & be financially well-off in the long term.

I see too many brand-new creators who follow inspiration pages with trendy #aesthetic quotes about being paid big money because they deserve it. The reality is you don't just wake up one day and justify to your client or boss that the only reason you should make more money is "I deserve it".

I'm not saying you don't by the way. Just be honest with yourself about where you're at and what you need to do to take the next step forward.

It's important to humble yourself, do the work, and have undeniable facts about the results of your work that you can use to explain why you deserve what you want.